Behind masked massacres

The story of Professor Lyndall Ryan from
Newcastle's Centre for the History of Violence began in her mid twenties when
she was knee deep in archives in Hobart - a "historian's delight" in her words -
documenting the history of Tasmania's convict system.

"I was a
research assistant at the time for Professor Manning Clark at the Australian
National University in Canberra. He was working on Volume 2 of his six volume History of Australia and dispatched me
to Hobart for six weeks, to uncover details of Governor Arthur's policies.

It was
during this six-week sojourn that the archivist showed her the 18 volumes of
letters and reports on Tasmania's Black War in the 1820s. He then suggested
that if she were considering postgraduate study they would make a wonderful topic.

"This really
whet my appetite. I kept coming back to the idea time and time again, and then
decided to follow through with the archivist's proposal."

This
decision was a pivotal moment, carving Lyndall's path for the next 40 years as
a leading academic on Aboriginal, Australian and Feminist history.

"People had
assumed that Tasmanian Aboriginals had died out but what we discovered was that
in fact, they were well and truly alive."

Following
her thesis research, Lyndall published her first book in 1981 called The Aboriginal Tasmanians, which
documented the extraordinary and dramatic history of Tasmanian Aborigines from
first colonisation to the present.

As an
Australian historian, Lyndall says she is bestowed with a responsibility to
present the available facts and figures in a way that people can understand and
come to terms with the events of the past.

"The more
research I do, the more dumbfounded I am by the amount of violence and
brutality that actually took place."

"Invaluable
new knowledge is constantly being brought to the surface, which is critical to
comprehending who we are today and the reasons behind why Aboriginal
communities are faced with the current state of social circumstances," she
explained.

In November
2013, Lyndall and Dr Jonathon Richards from the University of Queensland were
awarded an Australian Research Council (ARC) Grant to pursue their enquiry into
the violence, which took place on the Australian colonial frontier from 1788
through to 1960.

"There are
gaps in our knowledge and inaccuracies masked by blank walls," said Lyndall.

"People
still do not want to talk about what took place on this land not all that long
ago, which indicates that we have more work to do… This project is designed to use
new analytical methods to study how Aborigines and settlers were killed on the
Australian frontier," she continued.

Lyndall and
Johnathon will be producing new estimates of casualties by scrutinising
archives, books, texts, newspapers, and stories recording the massacres – any
sources they can get their hands on from the time – to produce a collaborative
and coherent assessment, which will be made accessible online in the form of an
interactive map.

"Sadly, there
is still so little known, especially in NSW. There are snippets of information
but no one has yet pieced together the overall picture."

"The stories
are not dead either. They exist today in a profound way and it is our job to
bring those to stories to light in a way that people are prepared to look at
it. That's the challenge: finding a way to present this ever so critical
information in a way that engages people and encourages them to learn more,"
she shared.

"It is also
significant for Aboriginal communities and the healing process. They want the
past to be acknowledged and we have a distinct role to play in creating
opportunities for justice."

Discussing
career climaxes, Lyndall shares of a steep learning curve that rocked her reputation
and research some ten years ago. "I was accused of fabricating frontier
massacres in my research and my career was severely under the gun. It was a
traumatizing experience and generated enormous publicity. I thought for some
time why I was in this line of work if I was going to be treated like this. But
it taught me that you have to be prepared to be crticised as a historian
because you are exposing information and truths many do not want to hear."

Looking
ahead, Lyndall is diligently juggling multiple projects in different stages of
development.

Along with director
Professor Philip Dwyer and Professor Roger Markwick, Lyndall established
the Centre for the History of Violence within the Faculty of Education and Arts
three years ago. One of the trio's motivations was to address the blanket of silence
that surrounded the topic of massacre..

Lyndall says
that it wasn't until the July 1995 Srebrenica
massacre, which claimed the lives of more than 7000 Bosnian Muslims, that European
scholars were awoken to the importance of massacre as a subject of study. Since
then important new research has appeared, including by Professor Dwyer and
herself.

One
important ARC-funded collaborative research project coming to fruition is titled
Colonisation and Massacres 1780-1820,
with Lyndall covering Australia and Oceania; Philip investigating the
Napoleonic spread into Eastern Europe; Nigel Penn from the University of Cape
Town focusing on South Africa; and Native American Professor Barbara Mann from
the University of Toledo, Ohio, investigating the frontiers of Michigan and
Ohio – then outside the boundaries of the new American republic.

Comparing
and contrasting these four areas of investigation, the group expects to produce
a book in the coming year.

"There are
important differences and interesting similarities, it is a very exciting
project," Lyndall says, adding that the remoteness of history helps soften the
blow of what can be gruesome subject matter.

"The
distance of the past gives you a sense that you can stand back and look at it.
As historians, we have the luxury of working outside the heat of the moment,
and it allows us to be sceptical, to look at things with a piercing eye.

"It's more
like detective work and it's always very interesting to explore the context in
which these incidents occurred. It is the past, and that helps, and once you've
found a few clues, of course, you have to stay on the scent."

A new project to be led by Lyndall is also
in development involving six scholars
from three universities who aim to determine the links between intimacy and
violence in white settler societies on the Pacific Rim (including Australia,
New Zealand, Canada and western USA) from 1830 – 1930.

"We are trying discover how well people on
both sides of the frontier actually knew each other. It appears that, they knew
each other quite well before, during and after the violence," said Lyndall.

Career Summary

Biography

Research expertise

Australian History

Aboriginal History

Feminist History

Administrative expertise

I was Head of the Women's Studies at Flinders University (1986-1998) and Head of the School of Humanities at the University of Newcastle, Ourimbah Campus (1999-2003). And then I was Director of Research, School of Humanities at the University of Newcastle, Ourimbah Campus (2004-2005).

Qualifications

PhD, Macquarie University

Master of Arts Qualifying, Australian National University

Bachelor of Arts/Diploma of Education, University of Sydney

Keywords

Aboriginal History

Australian History

Australian Studies

Feminist History

Women's Studies

Fields of Research

Code

Description

Percentage

160199

Anthropology not elsewhere classified

15

219999

History and Archaeology not elsewhere classified

35

210399

Historical Studies not elsewhere classified

50

Professional Experience

UON Appointment

Title

Organisation / Department

Professor

University of NewcastleSchool of Humanities and Social ScienceAustralia

Academic appointment

Dates

Title

Organisation / Department

1/01/2013 -

Membership - ARC College of Experts - HCA Panel

ARC College of Experts - HCA PanelAustralia

1/10/1998 - 1/07/2005

Foundation Professor of Australian Studies

University of NewcastleSchool of Humanities and Social ScienceAustralia

1/01/1988 - 31/12/2010

Membership - Australian Women's Studies Association

Australian Women's Studies AssociationAustralia

1/06/1986 - 1/08/1998

Reader/ Professor of Women's Studies

Flinders UniversityFaculty of Social SciencesAustralia

1/01/1986 - 31/12/2010

Membership - Association of Canadian Studies in Australia and New Zealand

Association of Canadian Studies in Australia and New ZealandAustralia

1/01/1985 -

Membership - International Association of Australian Studies

International Association of Australian StudiesAustralia

1/01/1979 -

Membership - Australian Historical Association

Australian Historical AssociationAustralia

1/12/1977 - 1/06/1986

Lecturer/Senior Lecturer

Griffith UniversitySchool of HumanitiesAustralia

Invitations

Distinguished Visitor

Year

Title / Rationale

2009

How Many? The doctrine of the self-exterminating and its influence on the historical debate about estimating the Aboriginal population in Tasmania in 1803Organisation: Riawunna, University of Tasmaia, Hobart Campus
Description:
How Many? The doctrine of the self-exterminating and its influence on the historical debate about estimating the Aboriginal population in Tasmania in 1803

2006

Massacre in Tasmania: How Do We Know?Organisation: University of Adelaide
Description:
'Massacre in Tasmania: How Do We Know?' Barr Smith Library Research Lecture Series,

Ryan L, 'Remembering the Australian Women's Weekly in the 1950s', Who Was That Woman? The Australian Women's Weekly in the Post War Years., University of New South Wales Press, Sydney 55-66 (2002) [B1]

Ryan L, 'A Turning Point for the Weekly and a Turning Point for Women? Debate about Women and University in Australian Women's Weekly in 1961', Journal of Interdisciplinary Gender Studies, 2 52-65 (2001) [C1]

1998

Ripper M, Ryan L, 'The Role of the 'Withdrawal Method' in the Control of Abortion', Australian Feminist Studies, 13 313-322 (1998) [C3]

Professor Lyndall Ryan is a gentle and urbane historian
who is "hopeless at the sight of blood" and doesn't care for violent movies. So
how is it that she finds herself immersed in the notion of brutality?

The Director of the Centre for the History of Violence
at the University of Newcastle, Professor Philip Dwyer, has been awarded an
Academic Writers Residency by The Rockefeller Foundation to conclude work on "The Dark Side of Empire: Violence and
Colonialism in the Old and New Worlds, c1780-1820."